Patterns of stereotyped behavior develop when a hungry pigeon is presented with food at short regular intervals of time. Skinner (1948) termed these behaviors "superstitious" and attributed them to accidental contiguity between rewards and behavior. In the same experimental paradigm Staddon and Simmelhag (1971) reported a common terminal pecking behavior, and argued that it was based on the conditioning consummatory pecking to the passage of time between rewards. We reported a reliable compromise result, stereotyped walking and wall-directed behaviors, and attribute the patterns to the elicitation of species-typical appetitive behaviors related to obtaining food. The wall-directed behavior was too reliable to be the result of accidental contiguity between reward and behavior, but it did not include pecking or other responses involved in ingesting grain. Subsequent research found that the walking components were based on patterns of locomotor foraging, but wall-directed behavior was not. The general objective of the proposed research is to clarify further the nature and determinants of "superstitious" behavior, and to provide a functional ecological account of its development. The specific aims of this research are: (1) to investigate the causaton of pecking in this paradigm; (2) to explore the contribution of response contingencies to superstitious behavior; (3) to test the hypothesis that wall-directed behavior reflects components of the food-begging patterns of young pigeons, and courtship-begging of adults; (4) to test a general behavior system account of superstition by using different rewards; (5) to clarify the relation of superstitious behavior to adjunctive aggressive behavior; and, (6) to develop a flexible computer-assisted technique for recording and analyzing observational data.